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At this very moment, the Café Musain has been re-opened for sixty seven years, eight months, four days, and two hundred and four minutes. The tables and chairs of their one and only location - in Paris, surrounded by University campus and high-fashion streets - sat empty as Éponine Thénardier - mostly known by her professional and preferred name, Éponine Jondrette - bustled about quickly in the back room, filling pies to the brim, sticking sheets of cookies and pies in the oven without a breath for herself.
Having opened the one and only location of said Café two hours and thirteen minutes prior, she was alone in her mundane, structured work, and was happy for it. Her work was simple enough - in her opinion, at least, though she could be argued as biased, as she'd done work of the same vein since the ripe age of seventeen.
Éponine's eyes raised over the table and over the pie filling she was mixing when she heard the bells of the front door ring, signalling someone had entered. She made no move to text Musichetta (her fellow waitress) or Combeferre (her friend, who, despite not having any official employment with the Musain, helped her often when there were crowd overflows). No - Éponine knew well that the Musain wasn't especially known for it's early morning customers.
"Hi, Jehan," she called out, eyes moving back down to the pie as he skipped into the kitchen.
"'lo, 'Ponine," Jehan grinned, haphazardly stuffing loose papers into his bag before using an elastic around his wrist to string up his long hair into a bun. (Such was his habit, since Éponine had once screeched at him for getting hair in a cookie in what could only be described as a very well-done wild harpy impersonation.)
"Who got pulled through an airplane engine this time?"
She pointed out a rotten strawberry, and Jehan passed it to her, watching with childlike excitement as the fruit became red and ripe in her hand. Éponine chopped it while still holding it, not letting go as she tossed the pieces into the bowl of pie filling.
"Nothing that gruesome this time, thankfully. Twenty-three year old died in a fire -" Éponine grimaced. "Of smoke inhalation. Dad's distraught, offering pretty reward for anyone who can work through any details. How it started, if she was in pain. The like."
The facts were these: Éponine Thénardier, twenty two years, four months, three days, and three hours of age, had a gift likened to that of the Grim Reaper on "Opposite Day". Those these were in her dear friend Jehan Prouvaire's words. She had the unique, unexplainable ability to raise the dead with just one touch of her finger. There were, as there was with everything, rules that she had to figure out for herself. One touch of her finger would bring life to the deceased. One more touch would kill them again with no chance of revival. She could keep people alive for only one moment without repercussions - any longer, and someone else would need to die in a trade of sorts. For her friend Jehan, who worked part-time as a freelance investigative journalist (Éponine, Combeferre, and the majority of his friend group were convinced he only did this work for the morbidity of it) found this gift of Éponine's inexplicably useful. They worked together more often than not, after Jehan found her reviving her childhood friend - and Jehan's consistent on-off boyfriend (they were consistent only in their inconsistency) from death following a knife-fight he lost very badly.
The guidelines of their work together was simple: they would be hired by grieving families insistent that their loved ones' "accidental deaths" were less accidental than they were murder, or by those who simply wanted details of death. The two would visit the morgue (or Éponine's Father's funeral home, where they were allowed in if they pushed a few gold bracelets or a pile of bills his way), wherein their work became more simple. The corpse would be revived for a minute, which was timed to the dot by Jehan. Jehan would usually ask the questions - who killed you, how'd they kill you. And then, if they still had seconds left, he'd ask questions just to feed his own appetite for the morbid, for questions of mortality and the afterlife. (Éponine was known to have touched some for a second time when they still had twenty seconds left, if only to bother Jehan.)
"Less morbid and bloody than the usual," Éponine observed, emptying the filling into the pie crust.
"It's really unfortunate," Jehan whined, clutching to the overstuffed bag slung over his shoulder. Éponine covered the pie with the overlaying dough. "We can visit the body at your Dad's funeral home - they're prepping it for the memorial service."
"Let me finish this pie," she insisted, opening the oven and sliding the pie in. "I'll get Musichetta to cover my shift."
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* \(◕ω◕✿)/ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
It is now two hours, forty-seven minutes later, and Éponine and Jehan stand in the upper lobby of The Albatross Thénardier Funeral Home. Having driven rather haphazardly from the heart of Paris to the suburb of Montfermil, the two stood side by side, though even the way they held themselves couldn't be more profoundly different. Jehan towered over Éponine naturally, but also in the way he held himself; his slender, dark-skinned shoulder were held up broadly, his chin jutting out proudly. Éponine, beside him, shrivelled into herself; with hunched shoulders and her oversized army coat (Jehan had insisted on her not wearing it). He frowned down at the little woman for a split moment, knowing it pained her to return to her hometown, to her Father and his selfish, sleazy ways.
Jehan squeezed her shoulder and then nudged at her, pushing her forward. The two walked forward from the last step of the staircase, walking through the wide upper lobby. At the end of the hall, in a couple of moth-bitten, messily arranged chairs, sat two men in front of wide, closed doors. One was much younger - pale skin with wide, smooth features, brown hair hair and freckles covering his skin. Éponine stared at him a moment - she was quite sure he was actually covered in freckles, she couldn't see a two-inch radius of his skin that wasn't dotted - but looked away as he caught her staring. His eyes brimmed over with tears, and the entire effect of him sobbing was rather embarrassing for Éponine to see. His cheeks and eyes and lips swollen, he gulped for breath like a fish. In order not to laugh at this young man who was obviously grieving for a lost loved one, Éponine looked to the older man beside him, who had a hand on the younger, snivelling man's shoulder.
Her breath momentarily caught at the back of her throat, though she chalked it up to her smoking that cigarette in the car much too fast. The man seemed familiar, with his kind eyes and his dark, smooth skin, though Éponine seemed to remember his hair with less grey, and he'd been wearing a yellow jacket, not a grey peacoat… The man smiled at Éponine and Jehan, and clapped the sobbing man on the shoulder before standing to his full height and approaching Jehan and Éponine.
"Ultime Fauchelevent," he introduced himself, offering his hand. "Father of the deceased."
Jehan nodded, introducing himself and Éponine and shaking the man's hand. Éponine, meanwhile, observed the sobbing man with a sort of terrible amusement and curiosity.
"Husband of the deceased?" she guessed aloud. "Fiancée?" Jehan nudged her shoulder, and Éponine remembered his many lectures on being appropriate.
"No," Ultime interrupted her musings. "No. Friend of hers."
"You two look much too bourgeoisie to be in Montfermil for a funeral."
"My daughter - adopted daughter - is from here. Her Mother is buried here, and I thought she'd like to be with her."
The two nodded in response, and Jehan quickly raced to repair any damage Éponine had done. "The two of us work together as a team - Éponine here specializes in the details, and I tend to organize cases, sort through them. Your daughter died just yesterday, right?"
He nodded, solemnly, though he appeared brave. "Early morning - maybe around three in the morning."
Jehan nodded, sorting through the front flap of his bag and pulling out a pad of paper and pen, flipping through for a blank page and beginning to take notes. Éponine spotted the cover of it, and reminded herself to scold him on using a Scooby Doo stationary when working with people whose loved ones were deceased.
Éponine stepped past Ultime, shooting a look back over her shoulder at Jehan, who'd stuck his tongue between his lips in concentration. She smiled, before pushing open one of the wide doors open a slit. Éponine looked back at the boy behind her, who'd resumed in his incoherent sobbing (he seemed to be chanting something about a 'Corgi' in a tone that could put even Éponine's wild harpy impersonation to shame). She slipped through the small crack easily, and shut the door quietly behind her.
"Hey, Dad," Éponine said loudly, pulling her tall, gangly Father out of his money-induced reverie. He looked up from the stack of money he sifted through, his narrow hip leaning against the coffin held up on a stand. Éponine reminded herself not to reprimand him for his indiscretions, reciting the plan in her head. (Éponine was good at lists. Lists were simple with no room left for family bonding. This trip was pure business, with no room for mourning or for regretting or for bonding of any sort.)
1. Revive.
2. Ask questions.
3. Put down.
4. Get paid.
5. Wait, bake more pies, repeat.
"'Ponine," he rasped, smiling with yellowed, chipped, gapped teeth through chapped lips. "Here to play detective again."
"Yeah, Dad," Éponine rolled her eyes, drumming her fingers on the casket. "I think the old man was asking about some extra prices," she lied, watching to vouch his reaction. He nodded quickly, stuffing the stack of bills into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
"Good riddance," she muttered, scrubbing her hands together as the door shut behind him.
Éponine took a breath, closing her eyes and remaining still for a moment. It was as close to praying as Éponine would ever get - it was difficult to believe in an almighty power or a heaven when she could zap someone back from death rather simply with a prick of her finger. A sort of cursed, reversed Sleeping Beauty.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, before steadying her hands under the lid of the coffin and pushing it up.
What Éponine Thénardier saw at the bright, youthful age of twenty two years, four months, three days, and nearly five hours later, was harrowing and terrifying and rather beautiful.
There laid a woman with coarse, thick, brown hair pulled behind her at the nape of her neck. With dark skin and her wide, full lips, it was a face Éponine recognized despite it being a much smoother, filled out version of the face than what she'd seen. (Éponine would later find irony in this, that the face was more beautiful when dead.)
"Cosette," she whispered, looking down at the finger that'd touched a number of corpses Éponine was sure she couldn't keep track of even if she'd tried. (She did bet, though, that Jehan had a page in his Scooby Doo stationary dedicated to keeping track of Éponine's finger's interactions with dead bodies.) Her breath, for the second time on that day, caught in her throat again, and the pie-maker knew she couldn't blame it on the cigarette she'd inhaled too quickly.
In the interest of assisting Éponine in her wish for a list to make sense of things, the facts were these: Éponine Jondrette, born Éponine Thénardier, was eleven years, seven months, and twenty two days old when a young girl, much like herself, was introduced to her as her already neglectful parents' foster child. Alternatively, Cosette's precise age could not be known, as her birth certificate seemed to have disappeared with her own Mother's death, which was still recent in the young girl's mind. She was estimated to be about eleven years old, and was expected to be great friends with the young, fierce Éponine, who seemed to find great joy in ripping the heads off of her second-hand Barbies.
Éponine, at this ripe age of eleven years and seven months and twenty two days, had developed a near Jehan-like obsession with death. Only a few weeks prior, Éponine's little brother, Gavroche of nine years and three months and twelve days, had collapsed. Though the official term for his "fainting spell" would be temporary death. Killed by a blood clot in his brain, Gavroche laid on the floor of him and the Thénardier's two youngest son's shared bedroom as Éponine panicked, shrieking before moving the back of her hand to Gavroche's forehead.
He burst up again, gap-toothed smile as wide as always, and Éponine didn't worry, because at the age of eleven years and seven months, it was her first brush with death, and she hadn't yet felt the repercussions of her own gift. After one minute of Gavroche jumping about his room, a woman named Fantine Tholomyès dropped dead for no apparent reason in front of her eleven year old daughter, Cosette. It was a trade Éponine was unaware of, and as Cosette clutched to her Mother's dead body, sobbing like a wounded animal, Éponine squealed with laughter, running away from Gavroche as they both flushed with the simple, easy happiness of family and of friendship and of the life they shared.
Not yet as bitter or as sad as she would one day grow to be, Éponine did not refuse but welcomed Cosette's friendship in the face of her parents' shared neglect of all their children, and of Cosette. Éponine would rip the heads off of her Barbies and chop their hair with knives from the kitchen (she would later chop at her own hair in the same manner as a teenager and as an adult), and Cosette would pretty them again, replacing their heads and kissing each of the little dolls on the forehead before setting them down in a row.
Needless to say, it was the first (and last) time Éponine Thénardier found herself in love.
At the age of twelve years, eleven months, and thirteen days, Éponine's little brother Gavroche, in a sentimental moment nearly unfound in the Thénardier family, fell asleep while him, Cosette, and Éponine watched a rather dumb film. Despite the stupidity of it, the movie featured many instances of people walking into walls, which kept all three enthralled. Éponine smiled down at Gavroche, convincing Cosette rather easily to throw the popcorn their neighbour, Montparnasse, had stolen for them at him.
He woke up groggily, slowly, but stood up quickly, smiling easily as he shook his head at the two girls sitting beside him. Cosette stood up just as quickly, pulling Gavroche into one of her common hugs, and after, in an uncharacteristic moment of affection and of tenderness, Éponine pulled at Gavroche's shirt. She pulled him to her, hugging him tight. All was well with this - their height and Éponine's ever-present jacket separated their skin. But it was when Éponine kissed Gavroche's forehead tenderly that he fell to the floor.
Second touch: death.
And so, these events laid out simply, Cosette left the Thénardier home soon after little Gavroche's death, on the hip of a man in a yellow coat with a wide smile, who professed he would be a Father to Cosette. Éponine grew with her little brothers and with her little sister, Azelma, and would move from Montfermil, would become Éponine Jondrette and would meet Jehan and would, again, meet Cosette.
Éponine stared down at Cosette with a curiosity never felt from her, not even as the child obsessed with tearing Barbies apart. (They only seemed to become more disfigured with Cosette's absence leaving her unable to piece the dolls back together.) Where was there for her to touch? And what was there to say in only a minute? Éponine's already unsteady, wavering heart beat quickly, and she bent to kiss Cosette's cheek quickly.
Cosette shot up into a sitting position quickly. She rubbed at her eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead. The movements were so casual that Éponine could do nothing but merely stand and watch the girl.
The blonde, then, looked to Éponine. Cosette seemed calm - not frightened by laying in a coffin nor by Éponine's presence.
"Are you the grim reaper?" she asked, her voice hoarse and low. Éponine supposed it had to do with all of the smoke in her lungs.
"No. I - do you remember a little girl who ripped the heads off of barbies?" Éponine asked, staring at Cosette as her voice widened with a smile.
"Éponine! Hello! Oh my -" she moved to crawl out of the coffin, or to simply hug Éponine, but the darker girl stepped back and away.
"You can't touch me." The truth that they only had a minute before someone else would die in Cosette's place did not echo in Éponine's mind as it should. "I can bring the dead back to life. Now - listen -"
"I'm dead?" Cosette interrupted. "I thought so. I remember -"
"Cosette ," she scolded, laughing shallowly. "Just listen to me."
She nodded quickly. "Listening."
"What if you didn't have to be dead?"